Iberdrola reaffirms its alliance with Qatar and opens up to new opportunities

Speaking to the press at the inauguration of the Saint-Brieuc offshore wind farm (France), Galán highlighted the good relations with Qatar, with whom it already has various alliances. “They are partners of ours in other issues and we are looking to be partners of ours in other places,” he said.

Iberdrola and Qatar have emerged in recent years as strategic allies. The collaboration between the two was cemented in 2011, when the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) became Iberdrola's largest shareholder.

Since then, the Spanish company has always grown with Qatar's support for its business model, betting on investment in renewable energy, smart grids, storage and smart solutions for its customers.

Qatar, which landed in Iberdrola's capital more than a decade ago with 6% of its capital, has been climbing positions to raise its stake to almost 9% - surpassing in its shareholding firms such as BLackrock (5.3%) or Norges (3.6%).

“I talk to the Qataris every other week. In other words, I have a personal relationship with them that is not good, but very good, at all levels,” said the Iberdrola chairman.

What he did say he was unaware of is Qatar's possible interest in increasing its stake in Spain's and Europe's largest electricity company. “In this case, I don't have any news,” he said.

Galán framed the group's alliances, on the model of those sealed with Qatar itself, Norges Bank -to grow in renewables in Spain and Portugal-, with Masdar -to co-invest 15,000 million in offshore wind and green hydrogen in Germany, the UK and the US-, with GIC -for the expansion of transmission networks in Brazil for 430 million euros-, with Mapfre or BP, among others, as a strategy to take advantage of the wide range of investment possibilities in ecological transition.

“At this moment there are more investment possibilities in the world than, let's say, we could rationally face and that's why we have partners who do it as partners,” he said.

In this sense, Galán, who last week pointed out in an internal meeting with group executives that Iberdrola has investment opportunities for more than 100 billion euros for the next six years, estimated that in the United States and the United Kingdom alone there are opportunities until 2029 for more than 60 billion euros - some 30 billion euros in each country - mainly in electricity grids. “We are a network company. We are networks first and foremost,” he said.